Skate and Annoy – Page 87 – Skateboarding in Popular Culture

Girl Scout Daisy Handbook

This is a picture of a page from something called The Daisy Girl’s Guide to Girl Scouting, thanks to longtime friend of the site Danimal and his daughter.

Ebay Watch: March – April 2015

Check out eBay Watch: April 2015.

No, X-Carve is not another alternative skateboard designed to simulate surfing and snowboarding. It’s a hobbyist or slightly better grade CNC machine made by Inventables, a company whose goal is to bring manufacturing capabilities to (very) small business owners and DIY designers/inventors. There are small commercial CNC machines available, but not at this price point, which is roughly $800-$1300, depending on the size you want. There are also open source DIY plans for making your own CNC machines, but those can end up costing about the same, and while there are communities out there, support and troubleshooting building your own machinery, sourcing materials and integrating the software can be a daunting task for some. I’ve been trolling DIY CNC machines on and off for years for use specifically in manufacturing skateboards, and I would be ready to pull the trigger on an X-Carve setup (or at least set up a Kickstarter! Gimme, gimme, gimme…) but even though the X-Carve is specifically advertised as being capable of making skateboards, the reality is that it isn’t quite big enough for actual skateboard manufacturing. I’ll explain why after the jump.

[Photo (Top right): Skateboard cut out with X-carve – Blue Sky photos / Chicago Tribune )

It’s June

Sure, half the year is over, but at only $5 this 2015 calendar is 66% off. Brought to you by Sam McPheeters and Jesse Michaels.

Even Extreme!® is Bigger in Texas

The competition was fierce in the Austin X-Games with multiple corporations battling for mind share in the critical 16-25 year old male consumer category. Some mind blowing social media tricks were unveiled in marketplace competition for the first time. Crowds cheered as skillful, death defying advertising strategies were executed at will. And there was some skateboarding too. Monster Energy wants you to know how well their guys placed in the . Pierre Luc Gagnon and Curren Caples scored a gold while Tom Scharr got a bronze. They sent photos too, in case you don’t believe them. That’s right, we’re not afraid to toe the corporate line.

UPDATE: Adding pics as they send them, Nyjah Houston, etc…

Fruit Shoot with Stefani Five-0

It’s been about 4 years since Skate and Annoy mentioned Fruit Shoot, but they’ve been shredding it up while our eyes were averted. They’ve got a YouTube channel that “…is the place to get all your info on Skills, whether you’re a football freestyler, a skater, a BMX flatlander, a dancer, or an urban gymnast.” I know skateboarders and Urban Gymnasts have historically been at odds with each other, vandalizing each other’s hal pipes and parallel bars, but the time has come to live peacefully amongst the larger Extreme!® community. To help you uncover your skills they’ve unlisted the talents of skateboarding pro (?) Stefani Five-O. They’ve fixed a series of skateboarding tutorials that she hosts. She actually skates in some of the basic ones, but hands off the more difficult moves to an accomplice. I guess she’s no Nikki Rose Quinlan. Who is she? You can meet her in a video bio. Up top is a screen capture from the Netherlands version of the Fruit Shoot web site. Skateboarding tutorials with Stefani and a couple TV commercials after the jump.

– Thanks to Matthijs for the tip.

Starter Skate

This is a curious product. I imagine it came into being via a discussion about the quickest way to cash in on a fad while spending the least amount of money. They must have thought the very clean design and sharp top graphic would fool an unsuspecting customer into thinking this was an actual skateboard, and if you glance at it sideways and squint your eyes, it look s good. The strangest thing is that the Starter Skate allegedly comes out of England in the 70’s. We’re talking England in the 70s, not Soviet Russia in the 60’s. I asked Neil about it, he said he’d never seen one before. The UK had much better crappy skateboard technology, so this one is puzzling. I’ve seen boards with fixed wheels passed off as skateboards before, but never with such presentation. This one sold for about $50, and the fact that anyone bought it at all is no doubt in large part due to the very nice pictures the seller provided. This looks like a prop from a Back to the Future movie if McFly traveled to Nazi Germany.

Tony Hawk Loves Movies

Tony Hawk loves movies and he’s going to talk about it for some reason, most likely because the folks at Fandango asked him to. They’d also like to remind you of his foundation. i guess movie theaters are having a hard go of things. I hear two large ones in NE portland at the mall are shutting down. I just caught the latest Mad Max in the theater, and holy cow… It’s an amazing addition to the series, doing the franchise much more justice than the Beyond the Thunderdome. The first two will always be flawed but “best,” However, Fury Road is insane. Now that I’ve done my part for the industry (freee of charge no less, and don’t forget about my foundation), click through to hear Tony talk about The Spy Who Loved Me and The Naked Gun.

Stash Block & Go Block

We ridicule a lot of so-called skateboard improvements here on S&A, but here’s one that actually could be useful for a select subset of skateboarders who already use riser pads. Why not have the option to stash “something” in your risers or pop in a mount that holds your Go Pro? That’s probably the biggest seller right there, one that I’m surprised GoPro doesn’t already offer. I wonder if it’s similar to the setup they use on the Sony Action Cam. If you want to buy them you can fund their Indiegogo campaign. They are also trying to fund a much less novel idea in the form of another clear skateboard. I guess it’s worth noting that the deck is made from bulletproof glass, so if there’s a drive-by shooting you can hide behind it.